I began this letter yesterday, and wrote that I was well. To-day my side aches again. I do not myself know in how far I am ill, but it is bad that I am obliged to think—and cannot help thinking—about my side and my chest. This is the third day that the heat has been terrible. In the kibítka [tent] it is as hot as on the shelf of a Russian bath, but I like it. The country here is beautiful—in its age just emerging from virginity, in its richness, its health, and especially in its simplicity and its unperverted population. Here as everywhere I am looking round for an estate to buy. This affords me an occupation, and is the best excuse for getting to know the real condition of the district.
After a six weeks' stay Tolstoy returned to Yásnaya, travelling first class on the return journey.
His search for an estate had been successful, and after persuading his wife that the investment was a sound one, he purchased two thousand acres on his return to Moscow.
The change of scene, or some other influence, weakened Tolstoy's absorption in Greek literature; and a huge dictionary he had taken with him, was used by his brother-in-law to press a collection of local wildflowers.
During his wanderings on the steppe, Tolstoy met many Molokáns, members of a kind of Bible-Christian peasant sect. They base their faith on the Bible, reject the Greek Church with its traditions, priesthood, dogmas, ritual, sacraments, and icons. The name Molokán, or Milk-Drinker, probably arose from the fact that, not observing the Russian fasts, these people do not scruple to drink milk in Lent. They are said to be distinguished by an honesty and industry not found among their Orthodox neighbours; and they abstain from all intoxicants.
It interested Tolstoy to mix with these people, and he liked to discuss their beliefs, especially with a venerable leader of theirs, named Aggéy. It so happened that in the neighbouring village of Pátrovka there was a very worthy young Russian priest, who was eager to convert the Molokáns, and occasionally arranged debates with them on religious subjects. Tolstoy sometimes attended these debates: his object being not so much to convert the Molokáns, as to understand the points on which they differed from the Russo-Greek Church. He also took an interest in the Mohammedan faith of his Bashkír friends, and on his return to Yásnaya read through a French translation of the Koran.
A few years later Tolstoy associated much with the representatives of various sects and faiths, being then profoundly interested in their beliefs; but at this time, his interest in such matters was only beginning to make itself felt.
A letter of Tourgénef's written at this period, indicates how little he allowed his quarrel with Tolstoy the man, to warp his appreciation of Tolstoy the artist. Writing to Fet on 2nd July 1871, he says:
Your letter again grieves me—I refer to what you write about L. Tolstoy. I have great fears on his account, for two of his brothers died of consumption, and I am very glad he is taking a koumýs cure, in the reality and efficacy of which I have faith. L. Tolstoy is the only hope of our orphaned literature; he cannot and must not vanish from the face of the earth as prematurely as his predecessors: Poúshkin, Lérmontof and Gógol.
Again in November, writing from Paris, he says: